Dear Career Coach

I've been managing a team of six people for nearly a year and will soon have to evaluate them and give feedback on how they are performing. While most of my team are doing a great job, one or two have been quite difficult to deal with and I'm dreading having to give them feedback that will probably cause further issues within the team. What's the best way to tackle this?

As a manager your most important role is to meet your objectives through your team. This means that you have to be prepared to do all it takes to bring all your team members on board to get the job done. While sometimes it will be tricky to bring someone into line, it is an integral part of your job and rather than dreading it, use the performance evaluation process to help you.

Feedback is invaluable to everyone and, if given in the right way, will help your team members to know what they are doing well as well as what needs improvement. Feedback can motivate or demotivate, depending on how it's done so you will need to be careful with how you go about it.

Prepare well ahead of time and stay factual rather than emotional when discussing performance. Keep the need to develop your team as well as to achieve your results at the forefront of your mind as you plan your evaluation sessions and be clear what you want to achieve. Aim to build trust and respect rather than be popular and be clear about what you are evaluating with your team; for instance, making sure that you are judging people on goals that were agreed by both parties and not just assumed by you as something that they should be doing.

Think carefully about the best language to use when speaking to your team members; people can become defensive if they feel they are under attack and will focus on how this makes them feel rather than on the issue or issues being discussed. Particularly with your difficult team members, distinguish between your personal judgements about someone and their ability to deliver (or not) on the job they are supposed to have done and keep your focus on their performance rather than their personality.

Giving good feedback is not necessarily about giving praise. If someone has not met their goals, good feedback will entail discussing with them exactly where they fell short, identifying the reasons and working on a solution to prevent it reoccurring.

Be honest and address issues tactfully but directly; too much diplomacy can sometimes completely obscure what you are trying to say and end up being unhelpful to both parties. That said, it's important to be sensitive to people's feelings and avoid vocabulary or language that can be seen as demeaning or insulting.

Try and use specific examples and situations to illustrate your point when giving feedback; vague generalisations are unhelpful and will lead to arguments and negative outcomes. Keep in mind that the feedback you are giving is intended to produce positive performance for the future and to serve the interests of your staff member and, as a result, your comments should be thought through and valuable to them.

Finally, don't forget to give praise where it's due and to show appreciation for goals achieved as well as any effort that your team has made beyond the call of duty.

All the best!